Burma Reality Checks before too Late

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Inside the country, Burma's military regime has got every and all political opposition, and potential oppositions, either crushed or contained. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi's house arrest has been extended, new generation leaders like Min Ko Naing, Ko Htin Kyaw, Su Su Nway etc are all in jail, students and monks already crushed in the Saffron Revolution of 2007; and with all offices except the Head Quarters closed down and all able and capable activists already detained, the main opposition party the National League for Democracy is just surviving feebly in the form of a handful of very old and frail care-taker leaders who are approaching their ninety years of age.

So, naturally, people hope for the help to come from the outside world.

The loudest clamouring about outside help, since cyclone disaster, is concerned with the so called Responsibility to Protect (R2P).

But the problem with R2P is that its biggest cheer-leaders are the French!

Usually one would duly have reservations on French politicians. They tend to try to go the other way; when the world put sanctions on Iraq, the French would do business with Saddam Hussein; when US & UK went to war in Iraq, the French opposed it. And, when the world called for universal sanctions on Burma, French would insist that oil & gas sector in Burma where French Total Oil Company was investing should be exempted; and during cyclone disaster when US & UK concentrated on humanitarian aids, the French who donated the least for Burma howled at the highest pitch for invasion of Burma.

And, even if R2P operations did happen, there was very little guarantee that French would commit enough men, money and material for the R2P military campaigns in Burma. As every one knows, in Afghanistan, French committed only a very small number of troops; and even those small number of French troops never take active duty in dangerous areas. If ever there is R2P war of invasion into Burma, only the Brits and the Americans have to take hundreds of billion dollars expenses as well as thousands of death and injuries of their soldiers. French will then make many more lame excuses to avoid taking any real responsibilities.

If the US is REALLY serious about forced regime change in Burma, Burmese democracy activists both inside and outside the country would be just too eager to support it. But Burma is NOT regarded by US leaders as a serious and urgent affair; compared with nuclear Iran or Taliban's Afghanistan, Burma is not a priority. After the November elections in the US, the White House as well as both houses of the Congress would probably fall under Democratic Party's control; there is zero chance that Democrats will go to war in Burma. And the new American President next year, either Obama or McCain, will not be able to make war with Burmese military regime, as they have to sort out the mess in Iraq, the nuclear bomb in Iran and the resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan as the first priorities. And, there is also the current credit crunch, global economic down turn and global oil & food shortages,….. too many problems awaiting the next President of the US! President Bush has even said in a recent interview with London Time newspaper that he regret his previous warrior stance; and if he could turn the clock back and go back to the past, he would do things differently. So now the US is engaging even with their traditional enemy North Korea, and the US is now in negotiations with Iran, Syria, etc.

Moreover, there are a few very basic problems for any armed intervention in Burma _

• Daw Aung San Suu Kyi always limit herself to mainly non-violent struggle. There is a widely believed and accepted anecdote that in 1988 at the peak of the people power uprising and the following massacre by the regime on peaceful protestors, the US Navy came into Burmese territorial waters and offered Daw Aung San Suu Kyi that they might intervene militarily, but she reportedly declined the offer.
• And since 2003 the US had learnt a lesson, the hard way, from Chalabi and other Iraqi exile leaders. Before Iraq invasion in 2003, the self-styled Iraqi exile leader Chalabi who was very good at lobbying in Washington got the trust of American leaders; and, in exchange for American money, he gave them exaggerated information about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, and also gave fake guarantees and promises to help stabilize Iraq after invasion. But when the time actually came, Chalabi's information and guarantees quickly turned out to be totally unreliable. The question is how much better Burmese exile leaders of today are than Chalabi and Iraqi exile leaders of 2003.
• And, with half a million brutish rogue soldiers well-trained and battle hardened in guerrilla warfare, and with very hard-line very stubborn ruthless ultra-nationalist Generals in Burma, and with China regarding Burma as its backyard, any R2P invasion war into Burma will definitely be bloodier than Iraq war; it will be at least as bad as the Vietnam war, killing millions of innocent people unnecessarily.

The problem is, while the prospects for internal uprising and external intervention are both very weak, and all the capable leaders are behind bars in Burma, the care-taker leaders inside and outside the country now, after twenty years of non-stop failures and set-backs, are pretty much like a spent force with an exhaustion of ideas and are seemingly at a lost on what to do next. While the regime is approaching towards establishing a military controlled sham democracy system, the care-taker leaders of pro-democracy movement do not look like having any thorough plans on how to challenge, stop and reverse the regime's sham democracy roadmap.

Another problem is, while political solution and real democratization are seemingly too far and remote, if one suggests about humanitarian aspects for the short and medium term relief of the suffering of the real ordinary people on the ground, some so called political leaders do not seem to like it. There are even, sometimes, accusations that talking too much about humanitarian aspects will dilute the pure efforts for democratization and political change. In the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis, when UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon requested not to politicize the natural and humanitarian disaster but to concentrate only on helping the people, some politicians apparently felt betrayed by Ban Ki-moon.

But, at least there is a small glimmer of hope remaining to give serious trouble to Burmese military regime leaders, i.e., to get them indicted at the International Criminal Court ICC for their crimes against humanity; as has been happening to the Sudanese dictators recently. It is the undeniable universally known truth that the regime has committed numerous vicious crimes against humanity, and a lot of reliable evidences have already been collected and compiled by a number of activist organizations and media organizations. And indicting despotic dictators at the ICC does not need a UN Security Council Resolution; it means China cannot veto the indictment.

So now there are two very basic truths here. One is that there is very little time left before the regime finally finishes of all the political opposition in Burma; and very little chance remaining, very little room to manoeuvre and very few options at large for pro-democracy side to act on decisively and efficiently before it becomes too late. And another truth is, while real political solution remains a far and remote aim, any one who really loves Burma and feels true sympathies for the people of Burma must in the mean time think also about how to help relieve the sufferings of the real people on the ground inside Burma.